The President's Assassin (43 page)

As though reading my mind, Jennie interrupted my musings and asked, “So are we here to talk about your problems, or about mine?”

“You are my problem.”

“Oh...Poor little Sean got his feelings hurt.”

We were getting nowhere. Which was exactly where Jennie’s taunts were meant to land us. But this was her idea, so somehow I was on her agenda. I thought I knew why and suggested, “You must be wondering how I knew.”

“Why would I wonder? You made lots of blunders and misjudgments. You’ve made another.”

“Have I?”

“Don’t kid yourself. Look, a few months ago, I might have seen Jason Barnes’s file. Maybe I even saw his father’s file. Thousands of files roll across my desk. They certainly never stuck in my mind.”

“You know, Jennie, I wish I could believe you. But you lied about your background, you lied throughout the case, and you’re still lying. It’s too late for the truth to set you free, but it can keep fifty thousand volts from ruining your hairdo.”

She stared at me a moment. “I had a reason for that.”

“For what?”

“Misleading you about my background.”

Apparently this topic was sensitive for her. “Tell me about it.”

“It’s simple. Every time I tell people, I get this look, and they say, ‘Oh, you poor little thing.’ I find pity disgusting.”

“And I thought you were just trying to hide a bad memory.”

“You’re a bad memory. You’re here.”

She was beginning to annoy me, and I decided to annoy her back. “I’m curious, Jennie. Did you stand outside and watch your parents roast? Did you peek inside the window and watch their skin bubble and fry?”

“That’s sick. Stop it.”

“Did you listen to their screams and howls? Did you sniff the air and relish the odor of their burning flesh? Tell me, Jennie. How did it smell?”

A flash of anger showed in Jennie’s eyes. She started to speak, and I said, “Share it with me, Jennie. I want to hear. How did it feel to murder your own parents? This is a new one for me—I am sincerely curious.”

But she knew where I was going with this, and she smiled and said, “The shock and awe’s not working, Sean.” She added, in a tone that was surprisingly nonchalant, “Read the police report. It was an accident. My father smoked. We always warned him it would be bad for his health.”

As she said, this wasn’t working so I changed the topic and informed her, “They’ll get you on conspiracy, at a minimum.”

“Will they? Where’s the proof I called Clyde? Where’s the proof I knew Clyde?”

“As your lawyer will eventually advise you, Jennie, in court not everything has to be proved. All cases have elements of circumstantial construction.”

“Yes, and all winning cases are built on evidence and facts. Not conjecture,” she pointed out.

“Good point. In fact, I thought it might be enlightening for you to learn how much we do know.”

As I expected she might, Jennie liked this suggestion. “It would be very interesting to hear what you
think
you know. Please proceed.”

After a moment I said, “Well, you’ll recall that I spent a lot of time with MaryLou, and later, a little time with Clyde.”

“Don’t hold that against me.
You
should recall that you volunteered for that.”

“No, you volunteered me. You told Clyde to pick me.”

“Conjecture again.”

I ignored her and said, “You should know that I informed MaryLou that the Feds knew about Clyde, and that in short order they would know about her.”

Jennie looked a little annoyed by this news. “Didn’t we tell you not to do that? Didn’t we warn you it was dangerous?”

“Very emphatically.” I added, “Jennie, I have to tell you, MaryLou did not take this news well. She became very...agitated. An interesting verb, don’t you think?”

Jennie gave no indication that the word was interesting.

“She never mentioned your name,” I admitted, “but she talked at some length about the scheme, starting with you going to Fort Hood and tracking down Clyde.” This wasn’t the complete truth, but true enough.

“How? How did I find Clyde and meet with him?”

“I don’t know how.”

“Then you’re in a difficult position. You can’t prove I met Clyde. Nor will you ever, because I never did.”

After a moment, I said, “But it’s not hard to guess. He was the third suspect you looked into, and the moment you laid your profiler’s eyes on him, you knew. So you shook him up good and then offered him salvation. Kill for you...and he walks, scot-free, with a boatload of money. Otherwise, he and his pals are going into the slammer until their grandkids’ teeth rot.”

“Is that how it’ll be presented in court, Sean? A guess.”

I said, “At first, MaryLou thought it was a bad deal and a worse idea. Right? Until Clyde assured her that their new friend would do more than provide information...their new friend would actually head up the effort to stop them. Wow—what a deal. What could go wrong?”

Jennie said, “Complete nonsense. I always agreed they might have an inside source. But it wasn’t me.”

“But let’s assume for a moment it was you.”

“This is silly.”

No, this was surreal. In every way she seemed to be the same Jennie I knew, yet she wasn’t in any sense the same Jennie. The Jennie I knew was brave, noble, and resourceful. This Jennie was a lying, conniving, murderous bitch. I said, “For this to work, first you had to eliminate the man who took your job. Clyde was an expert marksman in the Army, a lifelong gun nut, and poor John Fisk had not a clue he was being hunted. Boom, boom—Fisk was maggot meat, and Jennifer Margold has his desk and his mantle.”

Her face remained perfectly composed, as though we were talking about some other Jennie. “Ridiculous.”

“Should I go on?”

“You’re very clever, Sean. This is almost comically entertaining. By all means.”

“Only one problem—how to ensure these killings ended up on your desk. There are like...what?...four, five SACs in the D.C. Metro Field Office?”

“Four.”

“Thank you. The problem is, if it’s plain and simple murder, the SAC with homicide on his slate gets the crack at it. So about a month before this thing kicks into gear, you slap up a Web site and put a bounty on the President. You tip the Al Jazeera network to be sure it’s advertised, and we learn about it. As the honcho for national security in D.C., you were in the loop when the bounty was detected. Right?”

“I was informed, yes.”

“Why did you deny that when I asked?”

“It was compartmentalized knowledge, Sean. The government has this crazy idea that sharing state secrets with strange men I’ve just met is taboo. Silly, isn’t it?”

“Oh, please. The cat was already out of the bag. Phyllis informed the whole group.”

“And did that give me authorization to discuss it with you?”

Obviously she had an answer for everything. I said, “Anyway, suddenly it looks like assassinations with national security overtones, and it’s yours.”

She laughed. “You’re concocting a plot so convoluted it will sound outrageous to any jury.”

“You’re right. It’s completely outrageous. Do you mind if I jump ahead to the endgame?”

She rolled her eyes. “Why not?”

“Let’s begin with a little setting. I’m in the townhouse with the bad guys, MaryLou’s scared that she might get caught, and Clyde’s bitching about how his source screwed him. So now I know they’ve got an inside source and I ask myself, Hey, don’t these idiots know I’ve got a transmitter in my intestines? I’m a cop magnet. Haven’t they been warned?”

“Go on.”

“Well, I’ve got a gag over my mouth so I can’t ask.”

“And if you did ask, they would’ve killed you and run.”

“There was that, too.”

“Did you ever think they didn’t know because I wasn’t their source? Let me remind you, I knew about the transmitter.”

“And your lawyer should make exactly that argument to the jury. I would.” I added, “But you knew they’d been compromised. And you knew that if any of those three were captured alive...Well, that’s always the problem with a conspiracy. Someone always turns stoolie.”

“Is that a fact?”

“Cut the crap, Jennie. It’s beneath you.”

“Go on.”

“Ergo it was time to improvise. It’s not complicated. The secret had to go to the grave.”

“And how would I arrange that?”

“You tell me.”

She was shaking her head. “You know what I think, Sean?”

“Jennie, I haven’t got a clue
how
you think, much less what you think.”

My outburst seemed to amuse her. She chuckled, and after a moment she said, “We’ll get to what I think in a moment. Finish telling me what you think.”

“Well...where was I?”

“You were with Clyde and MaryLou.” She pointed out, “I believe I was about to save your life.”

“You mean
spare
my life. After all, had I not uncovered Clyde—as you know—the initial plan was to kill me the instant I handed over the money.”

She appeared to be confused and said, “You seem to be implying that I told Clyde to keep you alive.” After a moment of pretending to think this through, she chuckled. “Oh...I suppose you’re thinking I wanted you alive to draw us to them.”

“It was...a brilliant betrayal. You advised Clyde that if the cops found them, they would need barter. Just be sure I’m electronically sterile, and in the event of a turn for the worse, I was their way out.”

She thought about that a moment. She said, “More nonsense. They had you as a hostage, yet there was no negotiation.”

“No, but you knew there wouldn’t be. In fact, that’s why you had them murder Joan Townsend. She wasn’t on the original kill list, was she?”

Jennie looked at me curiously. In her worst nightmare, she was probably sure nobody would ever put this together.

“As you surely told Clyde,” I continued, “things were heating up, and all the good targets were too heavily protected. But Joan was soft, unsuspecting, and vulnerable. Poor Clyde was too ignorant to know that wasting the wife of the FBI Director was tantamount to putting a gun to his own head. Feds are still cops and all cops hate cop killers. Cops really hate killers who murder cop families—and to murder the top cop’s wife in such a public, in-your-face fashion was a humiliation on top of an insult. There would be no negotiations, and Clyde and his pals had no chance of surviving a shootout.”

“Sean, listen to yourself. You’re accusing the Bureau of executing those three. I sure hope you don’t intend to repeat that in court.”

She was right, of course. Though it didn’t really matter. I said, “So we’re at the point where the HRT guys are crashing into the room, lusting for blood, you’re right behind them...and you...Well, there sat the final loose end, poor Jason Barnes.”

Jennie shook her head. “I was cleared in Barnes’s death three days after the shooting. It’s public record, Sean. You gave a statement to that effect yourself.” With a look of staged anguish, she said, “All that smoke and confusion...it was...a terrible mistake. I regret it, of course...but we can’t change the past, can we?” She asked me, “Incidentally, aren’t the investigation findings admissible evidence?”

I nodded.

“Thank you for pointing that out. They exonerate me. In fact, I’ll suggest to my lawyer to make sure it’s entered as evidence.”

We stared at each other a moment. Clearly I was losing this battle of wits and wills. She knew it and I knew it. From that very first murder scene at Belknap’s house, I now knew, Jennie had chosen me. I had impressed her with my bright deductions and pissed her off with my cockiness, and Jennie had decided I was the one to beat. She would cozy up to me, she would partner with me, we would share intimacies and grow close, perhaps she would even fuck me. And then she would kill me.

Recalling the look on her face at the instant before she blew Jason’s brains out of his head, I was sure she toyed with the idea of popping us both. Had she thought she could fabricate an excuse, had she thought she could get away with it, I wouldn’t be in this prison yard, I’d be a chalk outline. She was now settling that belated score by letting me know she was smarter than me, she would get away with these murders, she would win.

In fact, Jennie said, “But neither Clyde nor MaryLou ever mentioned my name, did they?”

“No...they never did.”

“Nor can you prove that I met Clyde, or that I ever called him.”

“There are no surviving witnesses.”

“I’ve already offered perfectly plausible explanations for the evidence you have, haven’t I?”

“Plausible enough.”

She nodded. “You don’t see the fatal problem with your fantasy, Sean?”

“Tell me.”

“They never mentioned my name because I wasn’t their source. There are no witnesses...there is no evidence, because it wasn’t me.” She sounded sincere, without a wrinkle of dishonesty on her face or even a hint of insincerity in her blue eyes. In fact she was so utterly convincing, no jury in the world would disbelieve her. She stepped toward me and took my hands. She smiled. “I’m afraid you’re going to make a lousy witness.”

“Am I?”

“Were you falling for me, Sean?”

I wasn’t going to answer that.

Of course she already knew the answer. “Because you’re obviously brokenhearted and embittered. You’re allowing your hurt and anger to cloud your judgment.”

“Is that right?”

“Look, it’s time to be honest with yourself. You were a decent partner and mildly entertaining company, Sean. That’s all there ever was. I’m sorry if you thought there was more.” She squeezed my hand and added, “There wasn’t.”

“I know.”

“I hope you do know.” We stared at each other for a long moment. Endgame. She had gloated at her victory and was administering her coup de grâce. She looked at me long enough to be sure I knew she had won before she glanced at her watch and said, “Oh my, look how the time flies. My exercise period starts in only two minutes. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Not at all.”

I turned and started to walk away. About ten feet from Jennie, I turned back around and faced her. I said, “Back at the townhouse, you nearly killed me, didn’t you? You thought about it, didn’t you?”

She shrugged, a gesture of complete neutrality. Yet, given the nature of the question, anything but neutral. In that moment Jennie wanted me to know, wanted me to fully appreciate that I was, in her mind, entirely disposable. She could kill me or not; I was that irrelevant.